A Harvard graduate, Debbie Weil is a podcaster, writer, editor, storytelling director, and Web pioneer based in Maine. 

She is a nonfiction writing and storytelling coach with over 40 years of experience. She was formerly a journalist and an online marketing consultant and she has worked online since the early 1990s.

More recently, Debbie is the creator and host of the [B]OLD AGE podcast which focuses on confronting old age with honesty and vulnerability. And she is the founder and director of Island Women Speak, a Moth-like, intergenerational evening of storytelling by Maine women ages 20 to 80.

She lives on Deer Isle off the coast of Maine, where she served for almost a decade on the board of Stonington, ME’s Opera House Arts. She spends time with her six grandchildren, and with Sam Harrington, her husband of 50 years, writes a joint blog about reinventing life (and their marriage) at the age of seventy-one. Sam is the author of AT PEACE: CHOOSING A GOOD DEATH AFTER A LONG LIFE.  

A notable anomaly as a baby boomer, Debbie was a journalist for twenty years before becoming an early adopter of the Web in the 1990s (she coded her first website in 1995). She wrote THE CORPORATE BLOGGING BOOK (Penguin Portfolio), one of the first books about business blogging, and was a consultant and speaker worldwide on corporate use of social media. 

After 31 years in Washington DC, and after their three children were grown, Debbie persuaded her physician husband to retire and reinvent how they live by taking a grownup gap year and then moving to a small town on the coast of Maine. This major life change became the basis for the blog they write together, Gap Year(s) After Sixty.

The [B]OLD AGE podcast with Debbie Weil

Artwork by Judith Poitras-Raynault

[B]OLD AGE is about confronting old age with honesty and vulnerability and making the most of growing older. Each episode is a frank, 30-minute conversation with a bestselling author, expert, or exceptional individual on a topic related to aging. Debbie asks the hard questions about how to use this later stage of life to create, to find meaning, and to make a difference. 

She delves into all the current  topics related to aging: the un-retired life, reinventing work, slowing down, aging better, ageism, living your purpose, grownup gap years, grandparenting, intergenerational collaboration, effects of the pandemic, grief and widowhood, surviving cancer, and more. As well as other stuff that piques her interest; for example, the craft of writing. 

Her husband, physician author Sam Harrington, is a popular recurring guest. The Debbie & Sam shows feature Sam’s dry sense of humor as well as his medical expertise.

Official Bio

A Harvard graduate and a former journalist, Debbie Weil is a writer, editor, and story designer based in Maine. She is the creator and host of the [B]OLD AGE podcast, about confronting old age with honesty and vulnerability and making the most of growing older. As a veteran blogger and Web pioneer, she was named one of the Most Influential Women in Technology by Fast Company and a DC Top 100 Tech Titan by Washingtonian magazine. She is a nonfiction book writing & storytelling coach.

For 20 years, her company, WordBiz LLC, has worked with a range of clients from GlaxoSmithKline and HP to the Maryland Association of CPAs. Originally she focussed on content marketing, from creating effective e-newsletters to launching corporate blogs. More recently, she has pivoted to work with executives and professionals who want to write short nonfiction books, including memoir.

She founded Voxie Media, a boutique publishing imprint, for business and nonfiction authors with inspiring ideas and a desire to make a difference. She also provides consulting to navigate the new world of self-publishing.

Debbie is the author of one of the first and most definitive books about business blogging, The Corporate Blogging Book (Penguin Portfolio). She has an honors degree in English from Harvard,  a Masters in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and earned an MBA from Georgetown University.

She and her husband, Sam Harrington, write a blog together chronicling their continuing Gap Year(s) After Sixty. They have six grandchildren and divide their time between Stonington, ME and New Haven, CT.